What’s an item you just had to have and then regretted? I will go first…
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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I saved all my money to buy one of these. Thought it was so cool. And it was…. for about 2 weeks before it completely stopped working. Plus my parents didn’t get me my own phone line so even if it did ring, it wasn’t always for me. Such a let down.
High school class ring. What a racket. So cool to have your sr year. So cringe once you graduated.
Moon boots , about as waterproof as a teabag
Those stupid ass leave your feet looking like a sweaty tennis racquet jelly shoes.
They were gross feeling, painful af (hello blisters!), and yet I HAD to have a pair.
Regret thy name is jelly shoes.
And they actually had a comeback 😆 🤣 😂
One summer I remember bicycle shorts were happening and were everywhere and I had to have them. I was a fat kid
A Members-Only jacket. Why?? I just had to have it and my parents finally relented. It was promptly stolen the first time I wore it to school during track practice. I spent so much time looking for it that I missed the bus back to school (sport fields were about 20 minutes away). I cried when I had to tell my parents that I managed to lose it on day one.
This was my big gift that year for Christmas. I can still remember how excited I was. It was a absolute letdown. so clunky and difficult to work. I’m still mad. lol.
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Chuck Taylors. I have feet that need arch support. The Chuck Taylors of the 80’s had zero arch support and were torture on my feet. I had the same issue with TEVAs later on.
80s Peter Pan boots (or Pixie boots). So not waterproof at all.
Stirrup pants.
parachute pants were awful!
Jumpsuits. They’re back in style now and I’m like nope – I remember how it took 15 minutes to get undressed to use the bathroom back in the late 80s. Not doing that again!
Oh my god, I HAD to have a Flashdance style sweatshirt with Thriller emblazoned across the front. HAD.TO.HAVE.IT!
I regret no fashion choices! It was the 80s and that was excuse enough for ridiculously voluminous hair and neon leg warmers. Actually I wish I had held on to some of that stuff.
A blue suede skirt. Shockingly blue. Electric blue. I wore it with a hot pink shirt and blue flats. I wore it to a friend’s church function!!!! I’m dying inside just thinking about it 🤣🤣
Jellies. These looked so cool. I got a pair in lavender opalescent. I wore them to school ONCE. My feet were covered in blisters and in agony by the end of the day. After that, they never left my closet again. Never in my life have I been able to force myself to wear uncomfortable shoes for the sake of fashion. It’s just not worth it.
A series of truly terrible perms beginning in my freshman year of high school. I have thick, heavy hair so when I got my first perm, it didn’t really take very well. My mother complained to the beauty shop owner and they had the hairdresser redo the perm, with much smaller curlers. I ended up with something akin to an Afro, which is not a good look for a suburban white girl. I was also overweight, so when Saturday Night Live aired the “It’s Pat” sketch with Julia Sweeney, that combined with my new hairdo gave the bullies some new ammo.
Where I went to school the stoners wore those boots, I was too New Wave alternative to wear boots like this.
Do you remember Chess King? Anything and everything that I ever bought from Chess King.
This shirt….the 1 and only day I wore it.
Jellies-OUCH
I put a black leather biker jacket on lay away in the 90s at Wilson’s Leather. On my last payment, I changed my mind on a whim and got a black leather jacket with leather fringe on the sleeves instead.
I regret nothing!
Hypercolor shirt and MC Hammer pants.
Calculator watch.
As if I hadn’t been repellent enough to girls before that.
People who wore moccasin boots with feather roach clips in their feathered hair…
Had to have: Simone’s fringe jacket from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…regretted: not getting it.
Body suits—well they were actually onesies. If you were drunk and needed to pee—you were screwed. Then they had to be snapped back into place. Why for love of everything that is good would a designer put two or three snaps right at coochie level? I loved them though.
A Le Sportsac purse because some guy at school called it a suitcase.
I was raised by hippies in California, so Minnetonka moccasins were what we’d get for fall school shopping! I’m a lifetime vintage shopper. I have no fashion regrets (except wearing the wrong foundation shade in the 90s) because I love change and the re-imagining of style
Generra hyper color. Here let me wear a garment that highlights my armpit sweat!
I begged my mom for corduroy jeans in the putrid color of RUST. I was a chunky teen and the corduroy did me no favors, especially due to the “sound effects” when I walked which would trigger snickers behind my back. Back into the closet they went. My mom was pissed that I never wore them after all that wheedling.
Z. Cavaricci pants in middle school.
I’m from NJ. This is what all the guidos and guidettes were wearing.
I had no choice.
Epilady
Whatever was listed in The Preppy Handbook as “cool” or “fashionable” or “perfect for the big party at the frat house”
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Who had one of these little numbers?
My tastes are different but I think those boots are pretty awesome. I wore a pair in high school, ‘94 – ‘96.
Saw “Can’t Buy Me Love” and decided I could pull off a cowboy hat like Patrick Dempsey’s character at the end, getting the girl while riding off into the sunset on a mower turning his character’s dorky into cool as fuck.
I could not.
I’m native American and when I was in middle school in the early 80’s all the cool cats wore moccasin boots and I would sneak my mom’s and rent them out to my friends $40 per wear i made bank until my mom found out.
Ended up with an orange perm. 😭